A new road north of Napier?

The blue line on the Google Map indicates the route for the alternative road north of Napier under consideration.

A new main road north of Napier, alongside the railway line from Eskdale to Tutira, is under consideration.

Hawke's Bay Regional Councillor and Regional Transport Committee chairman Alan Dick said a better road north of Napier was a planning priority for the region and part of a central government plan to improve road access through to Opotiki.

He said the road north was the most vulnerable part of the Hawke's Bay roading network and a governance group of mayors and stakeholders met in Wairoa earlier this year for improving the Hawke's Bay to Bay of Plenty route but "detailed study work has not yet commenced".

Last week a rail and road familiarisation field trip inspected the route from Napier to Wairoa along the rail corridor.

Sixteen officials participated, with the group splitting its travel one way by rail and the other by road. He said they were looking at the condition of the rail line and the rail corridor "to get an appreciation of how practicable the proposal is to convert the rail corridor to a rail and road corridor between Eskdale and Tutira".

He said information was still being collated, but his personal observation was it was too big a project.

"It is unlikely to be practicable or affordable. In a perfect world where money was no object then it is a very elegant solution because it cuts out Devil's Elbow and windy roads around Lake Tutira.

"The incline is pretty standard and the line is pretty straight but the problem is the rail corridor - probably less than 4m wide in key points - is carved into the side of very steep hills. So to go from 4m to 30m-to-40m would literally involve moving mountains. However, it is going to be looked at."

Another improvement under consideration for State Highway 2 was traversing the Waikare Gorge at Putorino in a similar way to how Matahorua Gorge was traversed in 2011.

He said the rail line through to Wairoa, on which Napier Port is planning to run a service hauling logs, was in very good condition.

"All that basically needs to happen is to hook up some signals again, to clear some vegetation - which is not a big job - and replace some sleepers on the line that have rotted away."

It was hoped the log service would start in October "but it might slip past that".

"It's a long game."